4 page newsletter. Announcements include updates on fundraising efforts, building progress, Alex Reed hired as Assistant instructor in Art and description of visitors week. Last page details funding still needed for the building campaign
Black Mountain College Newsletter
Number 11 January 1941
Student-building drive brings $6000
Vacation campaign
During the five week Winter Vacation just ended there was an intensive and concerted effort by students, faculty members, and friends of the College to raise funds for the building project. Over six thousand dollars were raised. The support received from outside the College from old and new friends, was most encouraging; and the College is grateful both for their help and their interest.
The greatest number of contributions was secured by individual requests. Other sums came in as a result of donations made at benefit concerts and a benefit lecture given and sponsored by College people and friends.
Madame Germaine Monteux and Claude Monteux gave a piano recital on December 20 at the home of Mr and Mrs Joseph B Jamieson of Newton Centre, Massachusetts.
Jane Mayhall Katz and Claude Monteux, former students, assisted by two friends, presented two programs of music for soprano, two flutes and piano. The first of these was given, on January 9, at the home of Mr and Mrs J Malcolm Forbes of Cambridge; the second, on January 15, at the home of Mr and Mrs Richard Hubbard of New York City. A third such concert, sponsored by M and Mrs John P Carr of Winchester, Massachusetts, is planned for February 9.
Mendez Marks, a student from San Antonio, gave a lecture on the topic: “Black Mountain College, a Pattern of Education for Tomorrow.”
The money raised over Christmas constitutes an encouraging step toward the total amount necessary to make possible the adequate housing of the College next September at Lake Eden and the payment of adequate Faculty salaries this year. Evidence of an increasing interest in and understanding of what the College represents in American education leads to confidence that the economic difficulties will be met. The students and faculty are prepared to make every effort to accomplish what needs to be done; and they feel that with an active moral and practical support of our friends, the College will not only survive the stress of critical times, but will become of increasing national significance.
Building progress
Work continued throughout the vacation on the new building. The roof was reached before Christmas, and the main job at this stage is the sheathing of the frame-work to produce the outer walls. Hald of this work is now completed. The first step consists of nailing large sheets, cut to dimension, of a light-weight fabricated insulation board to the framing. One inch of this material provides insulating qualities equivalent to those provided by sixteen inches of stone wall. Over this sheathing are fastened large sheets of corrugated Transite, an asbestos synthetic, which is very smooth and of a light natural grey color which will gradually bleach almost white. The corrugations, which are about four inches from crest to crest, run vertically. Transite is as hard, durable, and fire-proof as stone, is easily installed, and will never require painting or other upkeep.
The steel sashes for the windows are also being put in place at the present time. These windows- the cheapest made- are of the projecting type: pivoted near the top, they swing out from the bottom, drop down slightly from the top, insure circulation. Rain cannot enter even when they are open.
Some lighting fixtures were purchased, at great saving, from the salvage of the New York World’s Fair. In general the lighting fixtures will be of the flush type, some with lenses for diffusion and efficiency. In some places it is proposed to use fluorescent lighting, which, although initially more costly, consumes only one third as much electricity as incandescent lighting.
The class is Architecture is making a study this spring of types of wall and floor materials, and is designing furniture for production. The Department of Textile Design is making samples of materials for floor covering, curtains, and towels, all of which will later be produced if possible either by contract or by leasing a power loom.
The Work Program during the next six weeks will consist of: completing the sheathing of the building, constructing the fire-tower, and beginning the installation of plumbing, heating, and lighting. Work on the farm, which has now been expanded to thirty acres for crops and one hundred acres for pasture, will be a part of the work program during the spring. It is expected that next year the farm will begin to contribute to the College’s income.
Chenkin resigns
The College announces with regret the resignation from the Faculty of Mr Kirill Chenkin, Instructor in French and Comparative Literature. Mr Chenkin, who was born in Russia, lived and studied in France from 1924 to 1939. Shortly after his immigration to the United States he came to Black Mountain where he taught from February through December of last year. Unexpected family reasons necessitated his going to Russia, and he is now en route via Vladivostok. The Board of Fellows is considering candidates for the vacancy.
Reed appointed
Alexander S Reed, one of the four students who graduated in Art last May, has been appointed Assistant Instructor in Art for the Spring Semester, and will offer courses in Color, Drawing, and Werklehre.
Faculty activities
Many members of the Faculty were busy during the vacation with College business, money-raising, speech-making; and many were active in professional ways.
Josef Albers executed over the holidays many of the paintings for which he brought back sketches from Mexico. These paintings will be exhibited by the Nierendorf Gallery of New York early this year. Mr Albers has left for Cambridge where he will teach art in the Harvard School of Design during the Spring Semester. The first half of his year of sabbatical leave was spent in New Mexico and in Mexico. He will resume his duties at Black Mountain next September.
Richard Carpenter attended the Biology Section of the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Philadelphia. He was appointed to the Committee on Ecological Nomenclature of the Ecological Society of America.
John RP French Jr presented a paper entitled “Disruption of Groups” at the annual meeting on Topological Psychology held at Smith College. This paper will be published during the spring in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology.
Richard Gothe attended in New York the first meeting of the recently established Work Camp Committee of the International Student Service.
Heinrich Jalowetz lectured on Schoenberg and his music, in Boston, under the sponsorship of Miss Lillian Paige of that city.
Frederick mangold, Vice-Chairman this year of the Spanish Teachers’ Section of the North Carolina Education Association, is helping arrange the annual meeting to be held in Asheville in May.
Robert Wunsch spent part of the vacation visiting Negro High Schools in Atlanta, Montgomery, and Columbia, to help reorganize their English curricula. This work is being done under the auspices of the Secondary School Study of the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools for Negroes.
Nathan Rosen and Charles Lindsley are making a study, in collaboration with the Spectroscopy Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, of the Zeeman effect in the spectrum of palladium.
A Lawrence Kocher participated in a meeting of the American Standards Association, of which he is a member. He also wrote two articles for the New Republic, one on Black Mountain College, and the other on New Materials.
Color photographs
With this issue of the Newsletter is enclosed the Magazine Section of the St Louis Post-Dispatch of January 12, one page of which is devoted to reproductions of colored photographs of the workers and building taken by John Stix. The College wishes to express its appreciation to the St Louis Post-Dispatch both for publishing the pictures and account of the Work Program and for its generous contribution of a thousand copies of the Magazine section, whereby it is possible for the College to send copies to readers of the Newsletter.
Visitors week
Visitors Week, inaugurated last spring, will be repeated this year at the end of April. Initial preparations are under way; programs and invitations will be issued in a few weeks. The main events will be:
April 25- Presentation of “The Cherry Orchard” by dramatic students.
April 26- Harpsichord Concert by Yella Pessl.
April 27- Concert by the College Music Department.
April 28- Lecture by Lewis Mumford.
February lectures
February 5- Dr Scott Buchanan, Dean of St. John’s College, will conduct a seminar on Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex”.
February 27- Mr Algernon Black of the Society for Ethical Culture of New York City will deliver a lecture entitled, “The Moral Basis for Democracy”.
Capital needed for building project
The capital still needed to prepare the Lake Eden property for occupation is:
For completing the main new building $12,700
For a wing to the building 12,000
For repairing, insulating, and heating the old buildings 9,000
For six faculty cottages 15,000
For quarters for the colored help 3,000
For furnishings 2,000
$53,700
(It is estimated that without the Work Program the main building alone would have cost over $53,000)
On the $35,000 purchase cost of the Lake Eden property there is still outstanding a mortgage of $12,000
Operating expenses for the year 1940-41 now show a deficit of 10,000
This deficit represents faculty salaries which will not be paid until money is raised; the amount was invested as capital during the fall to buy materials and pay for labor to get the building project under way.
$22,000
Total needed at this point $75,700
